Dal Baati Churma

Vanshika Jain
SYBA 2019

Dal Baati Churma

Recalling vaguely, it was around the time of Diwali celebrations when my family walked to the dining table hoping to get served with what they had explicitly asked for – Dal, Baati, and Churma. An exasperated sigh from my mother and the hustling within the kitchen walls made me curious about the history behind this dish. Intriguingly enough, my mom was happier than ever to enlighten me with a piece of our Marwari heritage through the ideal Rajasthani dish of Dal, Baati, and Churma. While this culinary gem is revered for its excellent taste, the fascinating story behind its origin is virtually unknown. She started by saying how this three- in-one dish; baked baati along with spicy panchmel dal, and sweet crumbly churma is famed as much for its simplicity as for its deliciousness. 

Baati(s) are little doughballs made of ghee, milk, and wheat flour, and its origin has been traced back to when Bappa Rawal formed the Kingdom of Mewar. It is believed that when the Rajputs established their power in the region, dal baati was their preferred meal during wartime. The soldiers would first break the wheat dough into chunks and leave it buried in sand layers to let them bake under the Sun. After this, they were slathered with ghee and consumed with curd. 

The three-in-one treat gained popularity when traders from the Gupta Empire settled in Mewar. It is interesting to study the origin of the three elements of the dish that came together to form the dish. The panchmel dal is a mix of five lentils - chana, toor, masoor, moong, and urad dal, which is prepared with a fragrant tempering of cloves, cumin, and other spices. It was first employed in the kitchens of the Guptas and soon became a favorite of the Royal courts. 

While tracing the origin of baati, anthropologists have suggested that baati was paired with ghee, buttermilk, or curd at a grassroots level. On the other hand, it was the upper caste who had the luxury to enjoy the combination of dal and baati. 

Lastly, Churma, on the other hand, is believed to have been invented when a cook of Mewar’s Guhilot clan accidentally poured sugarcane juice into some baatis. Realizing that it had made the baati softer, the women of the family started dunking the baatis in sweet water (made from sugarcane or jaggery) to keep the baatis soft and fresh for their husbands. This eventually evolved into churma, a sweetened and cardamom-flavored mix of crushed baati (Pal, 2016). 

Pausing her affluent knowledge about the history of the dish, we discussed how it is an absolute marvel to witness the artistry and sheer ingenuity of the Rajasthani cuisine. Rajasthan’s cultural case study stands uniquely apart – where many ancient Indian civilizations flourished in the most resource–filled areas. 

Residing amongst arid and unforgiving lands, Rajasthan was thriving in creating a dominant, influential, and regal culture emerging from sandy dunes. Primarily a vegetarian state, the lack of fertile soil meant a scarcity of leafy vegetables, which rose a definite challenge to create food. Since water is an essential commodity in any dessert economy, they switched to using milk, yogurt, and ghee as a medium for cooking. Another innovative addition was the replacement of vegetables with grains such as millet, gram, and wheat along with lentils, and legumes which became their staple ingredients. 

While other states continued to marvel at their materialistic achievements, Rajasthan continued to grow through their food culture. However, despite the rich heritage associated with the dish, more profound thought led me to infer how this ‘wartime meal’ had several biases. This dish was indeed enjoyed, but only by the upper caste members. The amount of ghee, sugar, lentils, and grains that went into its cooking was affordable, accessible, and available only to the royals. 

Interestingly, a deep-rooted culture of competition existed where royal households fought with each other based on dal baati preparatory methods to see which was the most prosperous and opulent amongst all. However, this competition led to the origin of some of the wealthiest and most flavourful dishes in the fascinating kitchens of these royal families. Each royal Gharana had a huge rasowara (kitchen) that employed a minimum of 10 khansamas (chefs) and usually had no economic restraints on accessing ingredients. Ironically enough, even though the khansamas cooked this meal in the rajgharana, they belonged to the common households wherein preparing and eating the supposedly traditional meal was a far-fetched privilege. 

Thus, I feel that this meal formed the identity of solely the Rajwadas and not the entirety of Rajasthan as our preconceived notion says. Moreover, this dish was often referred to as ‘Shahi Khaana’ which was duly prepared by the women for their husbands. This fact indeed plays into the gender dynamics since women were not even allowed in the war fields during that time and were constrained within the four walls of the kitchen to keep innovating new dishes for their husbands to eat once they return from the battlefields. 

After research, I found out how the Rajasthani cuisine has had relatively less influence from foreign trade and western ideas, and hence remains one of the most untouched fares in India. Although the Mughals have profoundly influenced the Rajasthani architecture and certain customs, the cooking traditions of the desert state remained sacred and away from Mughlai cuisine infiltrations. The few influential ideologies came through inter-kingdom weddings; the local food reached the other Rajasthani’ gharanas,’ which led to the development of the traditional baati, and combinations ranging from dal to kadi and further to the saag. Furthermore, baati eventually became the most significant import into the Mughal Court with Rani Jodha Bai. Culinary ingenuity in court led to the rather dull looking baati giving shape to two new iterations: the bafla baati and the traditional porridge called kheech. 

The evolution of the dish serves as an essential reminder of how our society has been subjected to development for a long time. With inter-caste weddings happening for 400 years, why do we still condemn individuals based on their religion? The fusion of our traditional food depicts how an interlacing of cultures could and has given rise to exquisite delicacies widely accepted throughout our world. Why is it that we can accept cultural changes in the food we eat, but not in our societies that condition the way we live? 

Coming back to reality, I marvelled at how our eating habits can connote such definite meanings. I often wondered why my family insisted that I have dal baati with my hands; I now found the answer as to how this tradition came into being. Some several rituals and values are attached to our cultural fabric, and rarely do we sit and unravel the hidden connotations they have. Additionally, food specific to our culture conditions us to follow the principles of our religion as well. For example, Chicken was not common in Rajasthan at all. Hence, it was a rarely used ingredient, and since cows are considered sacred in the predominant Hindu state, beef was utterly off-limits. Even though this was a caste centric ideology, it helped preserve the authenticity of our culture. 

Increasingly and not surprisingly, our commercialization world has been thriving in hitting every available aspect of our lives. Boutique hotels and converted palaces in Rajasthan have started holding workshops where they demonstrate the cooking techniques used royal rasowaras, to domestic and international tourists. 

Gastronomes who are enthralled to get a taste of the royal life, have been possible in achieving so due to the rapid change of inclusion in the imperial culture. Some examples include the curation of 40 volumes worth exclusive family recipes by Jaipur’s Thakur Amar Singh, which has been on display in a museum dedicated to him. Another example is Vijay Singh Bedla, who has been showcasing the 200-year-old cuisine of the royal Karan and Bedla clan at food fests in prestigious hotels, both nationally and internationally. 

As my mother’s story came to an end, I was pleasantly surprised by my new understanding of our traditional food. When I asked her why we always cooked this dish during festivities, she said, as a reminder. A reminder of what? Of privilege and power. Of how fortunate we are to have occasions to celebrate and resources to cook lavish meals. Of the power this food has had over generations of cultural evolution. She further added that different ethnic communities dominated over different parts of Rajasthan. 

While they primarily performed the same preparation methods using similar ingredients for the large part, their different religious backgrounds created multiple variants of the same cuisine. The primary caste divisions that contributed to the cuisine are the Rajputs, who were known as a fiercely proud warrior caste, due to their code of honor and fearlessness in the face of war; the Vaishnavs, who were strongly devout in their faith for Lord Vishnu; the Bishnois, a conservative spiritualist community believing in the conservation of all life, and found primarily in the desert areas of Rajasthan; the Marwaris, an ethnolinguistic group who are prolific merchants hailing from the Marwar region; and the Jains, who ascribe to the ancient tenants of Jainism and are considered to be a relative minority. 

Being a Jain Marwari living in Bengal, I have concluded that if we accepted our culture fusions as openly as food blends, our world would be a better place instead of this statement, just a cliché. If we can appreciate and eat pineapples with pizza, chocolate with dosa, and milk with Maggie, why can’t we just borderline accept our cultural diversity and high time to stop using it as a tool for division instead of uniting? 

REFERENCES 

(n.d.). Retrieved from http://krishnadalbatirestro.in/About.html 

Dal Bati Churma and its Historical Connection to Rajasthan. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ohmyrajasthan.com/dal-baati-churma-and-its-historical-connection-to-rajasthan 

Dal Bati Churma: Rajasthani Cuisines Quintessential Dish. (2017, July 12). Retrieved from https://food.ndtv.com/opinions/dal-bati-churma-rajasthani-cuisines-quintessential-dish-1248242

Dash, M. (2015, January 1). Food Story: The evolution of Daal Baati Churma and Litti Chokha. Retrieved from https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/food-wine/food-story-the-evolution- of-daal-baati-churma-and-litti-chokha/ 

Pal, S. (2016, November 2). TBI Food Secrets: The Fascinating History Behind Rajasthan's Traditional Dish Dal Baati Churma. Retrieved from https://www.thebetterindia.com/73751/story-dal-baati-churma-rajasthan/ Sally, April, S., & 

Tiwari, R. (2016, January 20). Daal Baati Churma: An Evening of Traditional Marwari Food. Retrieved from https://ishitaunblogged.com/2014/03/30/an-evening-of- traditional-marwari-food-daal-baati-churma/  

IMAGE REFERENCES 

Home. (2018, April 16). Retrieved July 30, 2020, from https://vaya.in/recipes/details/dal-bati-churma-recipe/